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SPEECH 



OF 



SE^TATOK DOUGLAS, 

BEFORE THE 

LEGISLATUEE OF ILLINOIS, 
APRIL 25, 1 8 G 1 , 

In compliance with a Joint Resolution of the two Houses. 



The joint session of the Legislature having assembled in the hall of 
the House of Representatives, Senator Douglas, accompanied by several 
friends, entered at a quarter to eight. Mr. Speaker Cullom then intro- 
duced him to the Legislature. 



Mr. DOUGLAS said: 

Mr." Speaker, and Gentlemen of the Senate and House of Repre- 
sentatives : 

I am not insensible to the patriotic motive's which have prompted 
you to do me the honor to invite me to address you on the momentous 
issues now presented, in the condition of our country. With a heart 
tilled with sadness and* grief I proceed to comply with your request 
,For the first time since the adoption of the Federal Constitution, a 
wide-spread conspiracy, exists to destroy the best government the sun 
of heaven ever; shed itsrays upon. [Applause.] Hostile armies are 
now marching upon the Federal Capitol, with a view of planting a 
revolutionary nag upon its dome; seizing the national archives; takiug 
captive the president elected by the votes of the people, and holdiug 
him in the hands of secessionists and disunionists. A war of aggres- 
sion and of extermination is being - waged against the government estab- 
lished by our fatjgb. The boast has gone-forth by the authorities of 
this revolufionar^overilment, that on the. first day of May the rev©- 




lutionary flag shall float from the walls of the capitol at "Washington, 
and that on the fourth day of July the rebel army shall hold possession 
of the Hall of Independence in Philadelphia. 

The simple question presented to us is, whether we will wait for the 
enemy to carry out his boast of making war upon our soil ; or whether 
we will rush as one man to the defense of the government and its capi- 
tal, and defend it from the hands of all assailants who have threatened 
to destroy it. [Great enthusiasm.] Already the piratical flag has been 
unfurled against the commerce of the United States. Letters of marque 
have been issued, appealing to the pirates of the world to assemble 
under that revolutionary flag, and commit depredations on the com- 
merce carried on under the stars and stripes. The navigation of our 
great river into the Gulf of Mexico is obstructed. Hostile batteries 
have been planted upon its banks ;-fustom houses have already been 
established ; and we are required now to pay tribute and taxes, without 
having a voice in making the laws imposing them, or having a share in 
the proceeds after they have been collected. The question is. whether 
this war of aggression shall proceed, and weremain with folded arms, 
inattentive spectators ; or whether we shall meet the aggressors at the 
threshold and turn back the tide of revolution and usurpation. 

So long as there was a hope of peaceful solution, 1 prayed and 
implored for compromise. I can appeal to my countrymen with confi- 
dence that I have spared no effort, omitted no opportunity, to secure a 
peaceful solution of all these troubles, and thus restore peace, happiness 
and fraternity to this country. "When all propositions of peace fail, 
and a war of aggression is proclaimed, there is but one course left for 
the patriot, and that is to rally under that flag which has waved over 
the Capitol from the days t>f Washington, and around the government 
established by Washington, Madison, Hamilton, and their compeers. 
[Great cheering.] 

What is the alleged cause for this invasion of the rights and author- 
ity of tin- government of the United States ? The cause alleged is that 
the institutions of the Southern States are not safe under the Federal' 
rnment. What evidence has been presented that they are inse- 
cure ? I appeal to every man within the sound of my voice to tell me 
at what period, from the time that Washington was inaugurated down 
to this hour, have the rights of the»Southern States — the rights of the 
slaveholders— been more Becure than they are at this moment ( When 
in the whole history of this government have they stood on so firm a 
basis I For the first time in the history of this Republic, there is no 



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restriction by act of Congress upun the institution of >»^p-'i'y, anywhere 

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within the limits of the United States. Then it cannot he the territo- 
rial question that has given them a cause for rebellion. When was the 
fugitive slave law executed with more fidelity than since the inaugura- 
tion of the present incumbent of the presidential office? [Much 
applause.] Let the people of Chicago speak and tell us when were the 
laws of the land executed with as much iirmness and fidelity, so far as 
the fugitive slaves are concerned, as they are now. Can any man tell 
me of any one act of aggression that has been committed cr attempted 
since the last presidential election, that justifies this violent disruption 
of the Federal Union ? 

I ask you to reflect, and then point out any one act that has been 
done — any one duty that has been omitted to be done — of which any 
one of these disunionists can justly complain. Yet we are told, simply 
because a certain political party has succeeded in a presidential election, 
they choose to consider that their liberties are not safe, and therefore 
they are justified in breaking up the government ! 

I had supposed that it was a cardinal and fundamental principle of 
our system of government that the decision of the people at the ballot- 
box, without fraud, according to the forms of the Constitution, was to 
command the implicit obedience of every good citizen. [Loud 
applause.] If defeat at a presidential election is to justify the minority, 
or any portion of the minority, in raising the traitorous hand of rebel- 
lion against the constituted authorities, you will find the future history 
of the United States written in the history of* Mexico. According to 
my reading of Mexican history, there has never been one presidential 
term, from the time of the revclution of 1820 down to this day, 
when the candidate elected by the people ever served his four years. 
In every instance, either the defeated candidate has seized upon the 
presidential chair by the use of the bayonet, or he has turned out the 
duly elected president before his term expired. Are we to inaugurate 
this Mexican system in the United States of America? [No ! never!] 
Suppose the case to be reversed. Suppose the Disunion candidate had 
been elected by any means — I care not what, if by any means in 
accordance with the forms of the Constitution — at the last presidential 
election. Then, suppose the Republicans had raised a rebellion against 
his authority. In that case you would have found me tendering my 
best efforts and energies to John C. Breckinridge to put down the 
Republican rebels. [Tremendous applause.] And if you had attempted 
such a rebellion, I would have justified him in calling forth all the 
power and energies of this country to have crushed you out. [Con- 
tinued applause.] 



The first duty of an American citizen, or of a citizen of any consti- 
tutional government, is obedience to the constitution and laws of his 
country. [Applause.] I have no apprehension that any man in Illi- 
nois, or beyond the limits of our own beloved State, will misconstrue or 
misunderstand my motive. So far as any of the partisan questions are 
concerned, I stand in equal, irreconcilable and undying opposition both 
to the Republicans and the Secessionists. [Applause.] You all know 
that I am a very good partisan lighter in partisan times. [Laughter 
and cheers.] And I trust you will find me equally as good a patriot 
when the country is in danger. [Cheers.] 

Now permit me to say to the assembled Representatives and Senators 
of our beloved State, composed of men of both political parties, in my 
opinion it is your duty to lay aside, for the time being, your party 
creeds and party platforms ; to dispense with your party organizations 
and partisan appeals; to forget that you were ever divided, until you 
have rescued the government and the country from their assailants. 
When this paramount duty shall have been performed, it will be proper 
for each of us to resume our respective political positions, according to 
our convictions of public duty. [Applause.] Give me a country first, 
that my children may live in peace ; then we will have a theatre for our 
party organizations to operate upon. 

Are we to be called upon to fold our arms, allow the national capital 
to be seized by a military force under a foreign revolutionary flag; to 
see the archives of the government in the hands of a people who affect 
to despise the flag and government of the United States ? I am not 
willing to be expelled by military force, nor to fly from the Federal 
Capital. It has been my daily avocation, six months in the year, for 
eighteen years, to walk into that marble building, and from its portico 
to survey a prosperous, happy and united country on both sides of the 
Potomac. I believe I may with confidence appeal to the people of 
every section ot the country to bear testimony that I have been as 
thoroughly national in my political opinions and action as any man that 
has lived in my day. [Applause.] And I believe if I should make an 
appeal to the people of the State of Illinois, or of the Northern States, 
for their impartial verdict, they would say that whatever errors 1 have 
committed have been in leaning too far to the southern section ot the 
Union against my own. [Applause.] I think I can appeal to friend 
and foe: I use the term in a political sense, and I trust I use the word 
foe in a past sense. [Much applause.] I can appeal to them with 
confidence, that I have never pandered to the prejudice or passion of 
my section against the minority Bection of this Union; and I will say 



5 

to you now, with all frankness and in all sincerity, that I will never 
sanction nor acquiesce in any warfare whatever upon the constitutional 
rights or domestic institutions of the people of the Southern States. 
[Applause.] On the contrary, if there was an attempt to invade those 
rights — to stir up servile insurrection among their people — I would 
rush to their rescue, and interpose with whatever of strength I might 
possess to defend them from such a calamity. [Applause.] While I 
will never invade them — while I will never fail to defend and protect 
their rights to the full extent that a fair and liberal construction of the 
Constitution can give them — they must distinctly understand that I 
will never acquiesce in their invasion of our constitutional rights. 

It is a crime against the inalienable and indefeasible right of every 
American citizen to attempt to destroy the government under which we 
were born. It is a crime against constitutional freedom and the hopes 
of the friends of freedom throughout the wide world to attempt to blot 
out the United States from the map of Christendom. Yet this attempt 
is now being made. The government of our fathers is to be overthrown 
and destroyed. The capital that bears the name of the Father of his 
Country is to be bombarded, and leveled to the earth among the rub. 
bish and the dust of things that are past. The records of your govern- 
ment are to be scattered to the four winds of heaven. The constituted 
authorities, placed there by the same high authority that placed "Wash- 
ington, and Jefferson, and Madison, and Jackson in the chair, are to be 
captured and carried off, to become a by-word and a scorn to the nations 
of the world. [Never! never !J 

You may think that I am drawing a picture that is overwrought. 
No man who has spent the last week in the city of Washington will 
believe that I have done justice to it. You have all the elements of 
the French Revolution surrounding the capital now, and threatening it 
with its terrors. Not only is our constitutional government to be 
stricken down; not only is our flag to be blotted out; but the very 
foundations of social order are to be undermined and destroyed; the 
demon of destruction is to be let loose over the face of the land, a reio-n 
of terror and mob law is to prevail in each section of the Union, and 
the man who dares to plead for the cause of justice and moderation in 
either section is to be marked down as a traitor to his section. If this 
state ot things is allowed to go on, how long before you will have the 
guillotine in active operation? 

I appeal to you, my countrymen — men of all parties— not to allow 
your passions to get the better of your judgments. Do not allow your 
vengeance upon the authors of this great iniquity to lead you into rash, 



6 

f and cruel, and desperate acts upon loyal citizens who may differ with 
you in opinion. Let the spirit of moderation and of justice prevail. 
You cannot expect, within so few weeks after an excited political can- 
vass, that every man can rise to the high and patriotic level of forget- 
ting his partisan prejudices and sacrifice everything upon the altar of 
his country ; but allow me to say to you, whom I have opposed and 
warred against with an energy you will respect, allow me to say to 
you, you will not be true to jour country if you ever attempt to manu- 
facture partisan capital out of the misfortunes of your country. [Much 
applause.] When calling upon Democrats to rally to the tented field, 
leaving wife, child, father and mother behind them to rush to the rescue 
of the President that you elected, do not make war upon them and try 
to manufacture partisan capital at their expense out of a struggle in 
which they are engaged from the holiest and purest of motives. [Re- 
newed applause.] 

Then I appeal to you, my own Democratic friends — those men that 
have never failed to rally under the glorious banner of the country, 
whenever an enemy, at home or abroad, has dared to assail it — to you 
with whom it has always been my pride to act — do not allow the morti- 
fication, growing out of defeat in a partisan struggle, and the elevation 
of a party to power that we firmly believed to be dangerous to the 
country — do not let that convert you from patriots into traitors to your 
native land. [Long continued applause.] Whenever our government 
is assailed — when hostile armies are marching, under new and odious 
banners against the government of our country, the shortest way to 
peace is the most stupendous and unanimous preparation for war. 
[Tremendous applause.] The greater the unanimity the less blood will 
be shed. [Much applause.] The more prompt and energetic the 
movement and the more imposing in numbers, the shorter will be the 
struggle. 

Every friend of freedom — every champion and advocate of constitu- 
tional liberty throughout the land must feel that this cause is his own. 
There is and should be nothing disagreeable or humiliating to men 
who have differed, in times of peace, on every question that could 
divide fellow-men, lo rally in concert in defence of the country and 
against all assailants. While all the States of this Union, and every 
Citizen of every State has a priceless legacy dependent np«»n the BUCCeS8 
of our efforts to maintain this government, we in the great valley oi the 
Mississippi have peculiar interests and inducements to the struggle. 
What is the attempt now being made \ Seven Slates of this union 
chose to declare that they will no longer obey the constitution of the 
United Slates, that they will withdraw from the government established 
by our fathers; that they will dissolve, without our consent, the bunds 



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that have united us together. But, not content with that, they proceed 
to invade and obstruct our dearest and must inalienable rights, secured 
by the constitution. One of their first acts is to establish a battery of 

cannon upon the banks of the Mississippi, on the dividing line between 
the States of Mississippi and Tennessee, and require every steamer that 
passes down the river to come to under their guns to receive a custom 

house officer on board, to prescribe where the boat may land, and upon 
■what terms it may put out a barrel of Hour or a cask of bacon. 

We are called upon to sanction this policy. .Before consenting to 
their right to commit such acts, I implore you to consider that the same 
principle which will allow the cotton States to exclude us from the 
ports of the gulf, would authorize the New England States and New 
,- York and Pennsylvania to exclude us rrom the Atlantic, and the Pacific 
|, States to exclude us from the ports of that ocean. Whenever you 
*a sanction this doctrine of secession, you authorize the States bordering 
upon the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans to withdraw from us, form alli- 
ances among themselves, and exclude us from the markets of the world 
and from communication with all the rest of Christendom. Not only 
this, but there follows a tariff on imports, levying taxes upon every 
pound of tea and coffee and sugar, and every yard of cloth that we may 
import for our consum| tion ; the levying, too, of an export duty upon 
every bushel of corn and every pound of meat we may choose to send 
to the markets of the world to pay tor our imports. 

Bear in mind that these very cotton States, who in former times have 
been so boisterous in their demands for free trade, have, among their 
first acts, established an export duty on cotton for the first time in 
American history. 

It is a historical fact, well known to every man who has read the 
debates of the Convention which framed the constitution, that the 
Southern States refused to become parties to the constitution unless 
there was an express provision in the constitution prohibiting Congress 
to levy an export duty on any product of the country. No sooner have 
these cotton States seceded than an export duty is levied ; and if they 
will levy it on their own cotton do you not think they will levy it. on 
our pork, and our beef, and our corn, and our wheat, and our manufac- 
tured articles and all we have to sell \ Then what is the proposition? 
W It is to enable the tier of States bordering on the Atlantic and the 
Pacific, and on the Gulf, surrounding us on all sides, to withdraw from 
our Union — form alliances among themselves and then levy taxes on 
us without our consent and collect revenue without giving us any just 
proportion or any portion of the amount collected. Can we submit to 
taxation without representation ? [Several voices "no."] Can we per- 
mit nations foreign to tis to collect revenues off our products — the fruits 
of our industry ? I ask the citizens of Illinois — I ask every citizen in 
the great basin between the Rocky Mountains and the Alleghanies, in 
the valleys of the Ohio, Mississippi and Missouri toted me whether he 
is willing to sanction a line of policy that may isolate us from the mar- 
kets of the world and make us dependent provinces upon powers that 
thus choose to surround and hem us in ( [Many voices "no," and 
"never."] 



8 

I warn you, my countrymen, whenever you permit this to be done in 
the Southern States, New York will very soon follow their example. 
New York — that great port, where two-thirds of all our revenue is col- 
lected, and whence two-thirds of our products are exported, will not 
long be able to resist the temptation of taxing fifteen million* of people 
in the great West when she can monopolize the resources and release 
her own people thereby from any taxation whatsoever. Hence 1 say 
to you, my countrymen, from the best consideration I have been able to 
give to this subject, after the most mature reflection and thorough in- 
vestigation, I have arrived at the conclusion that, come what may, war, 
if it must be, although I deplore it as a great calamity, vet, come what 
may, the people of the Mississippi Valley can never consent to be ex- 
cluded from free access to the ports of the Atlantic, the Pacific and the 
Gulf of Mexico. [Great applause.] 

Hence, I repeat that while I am not prepared to take up arms or to 
sanction war upon the rights of the Southern States; upon their domes- 
tic institutions; upon their rights of person or property, but, on the 
contrary, would rush to their defense and protect them from assault, I 
will never cease to urge my countrymen to take up arms and to fight to 
the death in defense of our indefeasible rights. [Long continued ap- 
plause.] Hence, if a war does come, it will be a war of self-defense on 
our part. It will be a war in defense of our own just rights ; in defense 
of the government which we have inherited as a priceless legacy from 
our patriotic fathers; in defense of those great rights of the freedom of 
trade, commerce, transit and intercourse from the center to the circum- 
ference of our great continent. These are rights we can never sur- 
render. 

I have struggled almost against hope to avert the calamities of war 
and to effect a re-union and reconciliation with our brethren of the 
South. I yet hope it may be done, but I am not able to point out to 
you how it may he be effected. Nothing short of Providence can reveal 
to us the issue of this great struggle. Bloody — calamitous — I fear it 
will be. May we so conduct it if a collision must come, that we will 
Stand justified in the eyes of Him who knows our hearts, and who will 
judge our every act. AVe must not yield to resentments, nor to the 
spirit of vengeance, much less to the desire for conquest or ambition. 

I see no parh of ambition open in a bloody struggle for triumph over 
my own countrymen. There is no path for ambition open tor me in a 
divided country, after having so long served a united a d glorious coun- 
try. Hence, whatever we may do must he the result of conviction, of 
patriotic duty — the duty that we owe to ourselves, to our posterity, and 
to the friends of constitutional liberty and self-government throughout 
the world. [Loud applause.] 

Mv friends, I can say no more. To discuss these topics i- the most 
painful duty of my life. It is with a sad heart — with a grief that 1 have 
never before experienced, that I have to contemplate this fearful strug- 
gle; but 1 believe in my conaciennce that it is a duty we owe ourselves 
and our children, and our God, to protect this Government and that 
flag from every assailant, be he who he may. [Tremendous and pro- 
longed applause.] 

Uu motion of Mr. Hacker, the House- adjourned. * Hf 6 









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